What Miessner did to Vallejo

Here is a list of what Katy Miessner ("Campaign 2013 starts early: First Vallejo Council candidate announces", March 30) has done for -- oops, I mean to -- Vallejo:

* Tried to kill the waterfront plan.

* Helped drive Walmart out of Vallejo.

* Helped destroy labor relations with her VIB pals.

* Opposed WINCO.

* Opposed the Solano 360 plan.

Five out of five caused a loss of revenue for Vallejo -- not a gain of one cent.

Is this the kind of person you want as a council member?

Katy Miessner is a political wolf in sheep's clothing. As co-editor of VIB, she represents the most hateful and divisive group to ever plague Vallejo with its presence.

The sole purpose of VIB's existence is as a revenge mechanism for a personal vendetta which got out of control -- that purpose being to destroy Vallejo's public safety unions.

Why? Because Kurt Henke, the former head Of Vallejo's firefighters union, stopped supporting the political careers of Joanne Schivley and Tony Pearsall. This lead to a back-and-forth war that included numerous lawsuits involving both sides.

In 2007 it all came to a head when VIB was formed as a political propaganda weapon meant to stop the election of public safety union-backed mayoral candidate Pamela Pitts and union-backed council candidates Erin Hannigan and Michael Wilson.

The method used was the scapegoating of the public safety unions as the reason for Vallejo's financial crisis. Personal attacks against Henke, former local firefighters union vice president Jon Riley and former Vallejo police officers union president Steve Gordon took place on the VIB website on a regular basis -- including insulting cartoons depicting them as pigs and rats.

Intentionally distorted salary and benefit lists were made public in a further attempt to humiliate and embarrass the hard-working heroes who selflessly keep Vallejo safe. The effect of this was the decimation of labor relations between the public safety unions and the City of Vallejo, and the eventual declaration of bankruptcy -- which VIB encouraged. Only now, after the waste of tens of millions of dollars on a bankruptcy that could have been avoided had a better climate existed between the public safety unions and the city management, do people like Katy Miessner, who openly encouraged it, deny that they did. Every VIB supported and elected candidate has done absolutely nothing for Vallejo other than to further the VIB goal with their continuing attacks against Vallejo's bravest and finest.

Since 2007, not one constructive accomplishment toward the betterment of Vallejo has been attributed to a VIB-backed candidate. Katy Miessner's election will only serve to further VIB's destructive goal and further divide Vallejo at a crucial time in its emergence from bankruptcy.